Posts Tagged ‘mental disorders’

This is a story where I’ll focus on my only true friend, Hayley, who has OCPD, by the way. I had been mentioning her in a certain number of my posts, and I probably will continue, as she is one of the rare important people in my life for four years now.
Here, I will be writing about our friendship, and what’s it based on, but also, how I learned that I need to make selection about which people I can freely toy with, and which actually deserve at least that much from me to spare them. I’ve learned this when I tried to make her ex boyfriend hate her. What I didn’t have in mind then, was that he too has a personality disorder.

Now, that may not seem like something that’d affect sociopaths plots much, but it actually makes a crucial differences in the outcomes.
Sociopaths can read people very well, and also wear their masks in order to prevent others read them.
That means they can also recognise others’ personality disorders and decide if they can use it in their advantage. I’ll give an example.
For instance, a person with anxiety disorder or histrionic disorder are a perfect target as they are insecure and easy to influence.
On the other hand, bipolars or schizophrenics are people sociopath will avoid due to them being too unpredictive.

In my case, Hayley’s boyfriend (I’ll call him Josh) is a highly-functional autist. What I didn’t know was that people with this sort of autism also have masks and are good at reading people much like sociopaths. One more trait these two have in common is the lack of empathy. So, this is one more disorder that socio would avoid at any cost. The problem though, is that they’re not easy to spot.

To the main story now.

Hayley and I met Josh at the same time, but, as he developed a crush at Hayley that instant she had retreated, and I got to know him a bit. It was very superficial though, so I couldn’t know about his autism. Besides, I had no interest in manipulating him anyhow.
It took almost a year for Hayley to like him back. But they did get together.

She never fully enjoyed that relationship though, felt under pressure and they broke up 8 months later.

That’s when I saw a chance for a game.
Our friend was throwing a party and it happened that Josh had come and Hayley hadn’t because of him as they had a fight after break-up.
He was already angry, but due to his strong emotions, he was not able to truly hate her. It was more of a grudge for unreturned love.
He was depressed and talked to me about it, as I was the closest person to hin on that party. That’s when I decided I can make his anger grow into fury and, eventually, hate.
(I hadn’t had anything against any of them, but I was bored at the party, that was the only reason of my attempt.)
It started with him mentioning how she was heartless, and I used the chance to switch the topic on her bad traits. Continuing, I told him most of the bad things she said about his intollerable behavior, exaggarating caferully, so I would still tell her words and she couldn’t deny if he asked, but still enough to fuel his anger.
I knew I succeeded when he ripped the university catalogue he intended to hand her as he thought she’ll come too.
And he did leave the party with an attitude of never speaking to her again.

As I had no frequent contact with Josh in the next few months though, I let it end on that night. And they made up four months later. It hadn’t bothered me, as Hayley does mean a lot to me, and I wasn’t interested in ruining her happiness as that would lead to her feeling bad, and I would get bored of her. Yes, it was my own interest again, but don’t expect too much from a sociopath.

During that course of time I learned some things too. Both Hayley and Josh understand me, she knows how I am, Josh doesn’t define me as a sociopath, but I asked him once to analyse me, and he described an antisocial perfectly. And yet, both of them are very fond of me.
I even apologized for what I did to both, and the reply I got from Josh was fascinating to me. He said that he did not take it personally nor got upset, and that he actually enjoyed it. “It was like a game of chess.” were his words.

All of that hit me up to make some new rules for my games.
I decided I’ll never play with people that accept me how I really am, even though that are just them two at the moment. They never tried changing me, blackmailing me, nor did they leave my side. I got advices from both, but they always note that’s just a personal opinion and that our friendship won’t be affected if I choose to ignore it.

So, all three of us tend to talk about our disorders, make debates and advice what we should change or pay attention to. This makes us stay linked and it allows me to keep a friendship closest to the ones ordinary people have.

So, why would I break that only for the thrill?
After all, there will always be someone unimportant for the game.

I wanted to show how you can be friends with sociopaths too as long as you show understanding for them and don’t try to make them be something they’re not.
Maybe we aren’t empaths, and we can’t give any love in return, but if you gain a sociopath’s affection, you can be sure they won’t ever try stabbing a knife in your back for the lifetime.
We may not have normal emotions, but we’re still simply humans with a personality disorder, not the devil’s spawn.

Everyone knows how a relationship with a sociopath leads to a disaster for the other side; but imagine a relationship with two sociopaths! It’s one hell of a ride. It’s a never-ending competition, and much more.
I had a relationship with a sociopath. At that time I wasn’t aware I was one, and, as far as I know, he still doesn’t know he is one.

Anyway, how does this sort of relationship work?

This dude is a brother of my friend I mentioned earlier, Dan. He doesn’t live in the same country so it was a distanced relationship, but I’ll start from the very beginning.
He visited during one summer break, and I knew he’d come so I had him targeted even before he came.
Unfortunately, the things weren’t going so smoothly at the start as another girl nicked him before me, but, I played it off by the usual sociopathic ways.
I took three days to analyze him, and made a mask according to his likings. But, there was the side I didn’t know then; he was doing the exact same thing with me. So, we made masks at the same time, and due to that, our masks matched perfectly. This probably caused us both to think “Got him/her”.
And as we were both making plans and plots, and were both up to play each other, the relationship was pretty turbulent. Both of us had snaps and crack downs if one would beat the other in one of the small games.
The fact stood those were mind games, and none of us cheated in a relationship. Although, the fights were horrible. They most frequently occurred while he was away and we held the contact via messages. That was a perfect time for toying, because the control was gone, and we were bound only to trusting each other. That is where I cheated though. I was hacking both his and his brother’s facebooks and observed their plots, so there were times I was a step ahead. Of course, we both held our masks on all the time, so the game was very fun. This is probably why it kept us going for so long. We were together for ten months before I finally broke up.

I found it strange while analyzing myself, after the suspicion rose, how that was the only relationship that did not fit the pattern. I never glanced at his behavior though.

During the relationship, we’ve had four smaller break-ups. And they would always end after he came to visit again. Sometimes I’d take the initiative for making up, sometimes it was him, but it was always the same. We did it because we both had so much fun trying to break each other. It’s like a dance under the masks, really. It all seems so smooth and natural and yet, it is all planned to the slightest details.

Once I got overwhelmed though, I had to break the game. He did beat me, but as he was older, he definitely had more experience. It didn’t end there though.

We kept in touch for some time longer, about three or four months. Then, he found something more interesting to play with, I freaked out because now I wasn’t getting the attention, and he just dismissed me for four months. That’s when I targeted the girls he switched to toying with, and, as they were from the same school, I created the war between my friend and them two. As they hated each other already, it was easy. In the meantime I found another boyfriend to kill my boredom as I was mostly passively observing the “girl war”.
After four months he got bored with those two, tired of their obsession with that war, and he contacted me again.
I know us, sociopaths, have the tendency to get back to our past victims if we get the chance to ruin them further, but considering the fact we were of the same kind, it looked a bit different.

This is the plain battle between two socios where the whole world gets pushed aside, and one is concentrated solely on the other. I wanted revenge, but had no way of enquiring it. He just wanted to kill time I guess. And we remained on that. Proving each other wrong about some meaningless things. Eventually, I got bored and simply cut the contact.

But he was still the only person capable of giving me a nervous breakdown and the want to stick around him still. It was all about the game. And it was nothing like any relationship I’ve ever had with any person I know.

And as I said, I wasn’t aware he was the same as me until recently, it finally made the pieces fit though. That wasn’t the relationship based on love as I thought. That’s what bothered me: How could I feel love if I was like this since I can remember?
But it wasn’t love for him; it was love for the competition and the thrill it brought after all.

I’ve seen many family members react negatively when they find out that one of them is a sociopath/psychopath. Also, it happens that they notice out-of-pattern behavior (especially parents). But, as both sociopathy and psychopathy are genetic disorders, it isn’t rare that one of the parents is also one. It doesn’t have to be the case, since certain genes can skip a generation or come as stray from the other part of the family, but in my case, both my mother and I are sociopaths.

I avoided telling her that, due to some differences that exist among us. These differences probably originate from the fact that she had a calmer childhood, and had little to no traumas (or triggers).
She is also not a sadistic sociopath type like me. This led to some changes in my growing up, since she is not a “full-blown” sociopath.
I talk to her a lot, and we have a strong bond, even though it isn’t based on normal mother-daughter love bond. It is more based on mutual understanding, and it is very visible that my father is somehow cast aside from this. We live in the same house, but I rarely ever have a lengthy conversation with him, and it usually ends with a serious verbal fight.
But back to my mother and me.
She is quite atypical since she seems to have a certain dose of empathy for animals. And, as we’ve kept cats almost since my birth, I grew up around animals and learned to act nicely with them. Even today I still have cats, and I do enjoy their presence. Although, when I was younger, I had the tendency to imagine torturing a cat and seeing how it would react. I also squeezed them a lot to hear them squeak, but I never hurt them. It also happens that cat starts annoying me and I hit it pretty harshly. Now, I don’t feel guilt about hitting it too hard, but something still “slaps” me for doing so. It passes pretty quickly though, in the matter of seconds.
She has no empathy for humans, however. She never had many friends, and the ones she had meant nothing to her. It’s the same for me. But, as I said, I had had certain triggers during my teenage years, and that’s when emotion by emotion (faint ones, but still somewhat present) started falling off. After a few strong triggers my personality with sociopathic tendencies only, grew into a true sociopathic personality.
I had no idea it did until Hayley brought it up, since she is interested in psychology.
I knew I was different, but I was so convinced I had normal emotions that I went with complete opposite at the start and concluded I had Borderline personality disorder. Hayley noted a few times that certain things did match, but something was still wrong with it. I dismissed her opinion though. I wanted to believe it was BPD I had, because that would give me immunity. But, I didn’t pay attention I wanted it just for personal gain, to justify my bad behavior. And she couldn’t tell that I was manipulative liar since I always had a mask on.
Anyway, as I came to a realization of my true disorder, I took it just fine; again proving I had no emotions. Once I got along with that, I said it to Hayley, and everything did fit as I took my mask off for her.

And as sociopathy is genetic, I started analyzing my mother, as I resemble her too much in behavior. That’s when I first started asking her about her past and her attitudes for other people actively. Even today, she has no friends and she seems to be content with that. But, as I said, she does have empathy for animals and her close family.
Within a year, I lost my grandmother, mother’s mother, and grandfather, my father’s father.
I was indifferent about both events, not feeling a speck of sadness, but I’ve seen my mother cry for her mother’s death. Though, she gave no response for my grandfather, the same as me. So this supports the theory she isn’t like me completely.

At the time of my grandfather’s death, I was in a hospital though, and the circumstances were a bit different. The time at the hospital was also one of my triggers. That’s when I lost the last remaining bits of sanity, but I’ll talk about that in a post about triggers soon. This point was significant though, becuse that’s when I had the first major snap. A public one that is. And that was when the whole family from my father’s side concluded they had so much against my behavior. I snapped because both of my parents were going to the funeral in a pretty distanced city and were leaving me alone at the hospital for two days. Both of my aunts were there and I still yelled “I don’t give a shit about the damn funeral, he is dead and I am still alive, you don’t have to go both!” This hit them all pretty hard, and I never regretted a single word. No guilt. The key point was when my mother was the only one to step over to my side and did not find anything wrong with my opinion. All she did was to discreetly warn me not to show it so openly.

And in many conversations she would tell my mistakes, and how to correct them. But she never mentioned it was wrong nor scolded me for being manipulative. Almost even praised me sometimes. She observes that as one simply is having formed opinion on things and being able to get through life to get what one wants. She often uses the phrase “any means necessary” when advising me. And I really live with that phrase as one of my mottos.

I find it interesting how she kept thinking that kind of behavior is right for her whole life, and how she taught me to live following these principles beside my father watching and teaching me the opposite. On the other side, I probably wouldn’t accept them if I wasn’t like her from my early years.

I also remember how she always stood in my defense when I had fights at elementary school, even though she knew it was my fault. She’d always help me make up a valid story to make the other side look guilty, and it worked every single time. I was never accused for starting the fight in the end, and she seemed to always convince the teachers to think what she wanted them to.

So there’s the recipe for creating a perfect sociopath: I had genetic tendencies, a firm role model to fuel them and enough triggers caused by the surroundings to light the match. And voila!

Getting exposed before finishing their plans is the greatest punishment for any sociopath. That’s a knife in the heart and it triggers bitterness and rage, but, with rage it also triggers the desire to take revenge.
As I read in many places and blogs, people, when noticing a sociopath, run as fast as they can, which I consider a smart decision. But I had a situation where the person that revealed the way I am wanted to confront me, actually, was convinced she was going to beat me in the game of manipulations.
She made a huge mistake with that. Let’s call her Anna, for instance, since it’ll be much easier for me to present the situation if I can use names, but I won’t use any real names here.

So, our friendship started two and a half years before she saw my real self. We became best friends, as we were so simmilar in everything. This was a mirror effect of course, since she is nothing like me.
At first, I thought we’ll be just fine, as she met her boyfriend thanks to me, and the whole group of friends we were both in (she came from a foreign country to live here).
And as long as I was the first on her list of friends, I was content. I never planed to manipulate her, and the only thing I did as a sociopath was to keep on a faint mask that she’ll love. She still did know I was genuinely ruthless towards some people we both knew, but she was convinced I acted that way to cover up my weaknesses. This annoyed me, since I hate to be said I am weak, but it was better for me if she thought so, and I let her to. After all, she wasn’t the first to say it.
After two years, she distanced from me, as she was always a person easy for manipulation, and her other so-called-friends used that in far worse ways than I did (one even put the joint in her bag without her knowledge, for fun). I didn’t want to bother with saying that to her as she never listened when I was pointing out how she was incapable to ever say “no”, and how stupid it is to believe everyone is good. I tried my best to detach her from those junkies, but she refused. After all, she could never read people as well as I can. And she still clings to those abusers. Anna took my talking wrong and, as she’s not an angel either, decided to take revenge on me. She started copying me, and tried taking my place in our group (as we called it The Battery, I’ll refer to our circle of friends that way from now on) while I was occupied with my relationship. This enraged me pretty much, and I made small gossips which made the whole Battery get a pretty black image of her. It wasn’t all lies to put it clear. I have just put a spotlight on her bad traits. This led to Anna’s distancing from the rest of the Battery and I could pull her to myself again, as her greatest weakness was to be hated by people. This didn’t last long, since she was jealous of my other friend (let’s call her Hayley) that I am very close with. Hayley is the only person who knows me the way I am, and is still by my side. Anna, much as myself, is an attention seeker. But, her methods for drawing attention were always pathetic, and she always plays a victim. This is another trait of hers I despise. And I’m sure that the combination of that and her over-confidence is something that actually ruined her chances against me.

What made me rage was when I made a cardinal mistake and all control slipped from my hands.
It was plain stupidity!

Hayley is someone who has a total insight in all of my plans and manipulations, since she’s the only one out of the Battery I hang around with. And I needed someone to share my plans and successes with, because, as you know by now, sociopath needs verification of his/her deeds.
So, as Anna had some problems in her longlasting relationship, because her angelic mask had fallen off, I saw my chance to completely ruin her life as a revenge for her tries to take my place and kick me out as her rival. After all, I was taking all of the attention she wanted.
And I wrote my plan down for Hayley, but, I forgot to rip the piece out of the notebook I carried to my classes in the fourth grade. And I was reckless about it, so it reached Anna’s hands.

This is where the main ruckus started.

I tried talking my way out, with a sort of a compromise. I was to forget about my manipulation to ruin every aspect of her social life, and she was to simply discard the fact I worked behind her back all the time and not tell anyone. She had accepted the deal, but in the next few days things were shaky. I couldn’t tell what am I at with her as she did speak to me in a brief manner, in classes, but was still very cold, plus, I was in a company of Hayley much more at that period of time.
That’s when I couldn’t take it anymore. I wasn’t sad that I lost her as a friend, I was furious because I got caught. It was unbearable to know that, and I felt utterly defeated. Because, the only way to hurt a sociopath is to cut the contact with them. This burns, and I just had to try to fix things. To try and get her back to my side.

At breaks we get out together for a cigarette and that’s when I took a shot. (I will also mention Dan here, our friend who I find rather pathetic, since he thinks he has a chance of hooking up with any of the females from the Battery; and his brother, who I’ll call John, who is a classical thief and a complete idiot, but has hots for Anna)
The conversation was going on like this…

Me: Hey, Anna, how about you come by for a coffee today?
Anna: I’m gonna have to reject your offer.
Me: And why is that? I thought we made an agreement. I said I wasn’t going to do that ever again. And I don’t feel like going to Dan’s today, you know how he hits on both of us! Come on. (this is the point where I already got agitated)
Anna: I don’t think so… I told him I have a crush on John. And I won’t talk to you outside of school anymore. I’m doing this only to observe how Hayley will react. You know, you aren’t the only manipulator around.
Me: Uh-huh.

This is when I stormed into the school buildng, feeling like I’ll start kicking everything I can, and throw and break things. I wanted to kill her at that point, in the real sense of those words. But I had to stay calm and not show it.
That’s when I hit the brake and rewinded our conversation in my head. How stupid of her!
That’s when the odds were on my side again. She had the victory on her palm and was just to grab it, but she let it slip. I laughed. I laughed out loud, couldn’t hold it in at all.
She called me a psychopath in the face three days earlier, and now, knowing how I was, still provided me informations on her “manipulations”! Now, I had the material to tell a story of what a lying bitch she was, and she gave me the motive to do it. I really wasn’t going to until she declared this war. “No one is to be a bigger manipulator than me. No one is better than me. And I will prove it.” were the thoughts I had at that moment. The Battery consists of horrible people really. They are all scum in some way, but they stick together, and when someone tries fooling them, they can be merciless. I’ve heard all of the plots they made against some people, I was a part of some for fun, and they would simply insult them in the face. Tease in a rather cruel way. Anna had a nickname Sophisticated bitch the first time they had seen how she was. But then, she had her boyfriend to stand in her defense. Now that her relationship was falling apart, she didn’t have that. And her greatest weakness, as I said, is to be hated by other people; not to get the needed dose of attention. A classical histrionic.

So, if she didn’t pick on me, she’d be fine, and would even beat me in my own game. I’d have to admit she was better. But no, she was so confident! And she has to pay the price.
The only thing she could still use is that piece of paper, but if everything started decaying, I wouldn’t mind it much. Or, the threat would do to get it back.

All in all, once you expose a sociopath, better distance right away, don’t think you can play the game any longer, because once enraged, it easily passes the limits of mental abuse only. Remember, we have no conscience, and the hurt ego triggers our real ruthlessness.